Weekly News Wrap: Monday, January 20, 2014

Your weekly selection of international law and international relations headlines from around the world:

Africa

• A senior UN official has given warning of the risk of genocide in the Central African Republic without a more robust international response to communal bloodshed in which at least eight more people have died. The EU is expected to send troops to help stabilize the situation.
• The UN has said it has evidence of the use of child soldiers and mass war crimes committed by both sides in South Sudan’s civil war. More from Jurist here.
• South Sudanese government forces said they seized the flashpoint town of Bor back from rebels and Uganda’s army claimed credit for the operation, highlighting the depth of its involvement in the conflict.

Asia

• North Korea has called on South Korea to end “all acts of provocation and slander,” after it warned of “an unimaginable holocaust” if the South carried out military exercises with the United States.
• Myanmar authorities have denied any civilian deaths but confirmed a clash took place after a rights group reported several people including women and a child have been killed in an attack on Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar.

Americas

• The United States has implanted devices in nearly 100,000 computers to spy on institutions such as the Chinese and Russian military, EU trade groups and agencies within Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan.
• Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused the United States of killing seven children and one woman in an airstrike, an incident set to further damage frayed ties between the two allies.

Middle East

• Inspectors from the IAEA arrived in Tehran to oversee implementation of a landmark deal between Iran and six world powers that puts temporary curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.
• An Iranian diplomat was killed in Yemen’s capital Sanaa when he resisted gunmen who were trying to kidnap him near the ambassador’s residence.
• Syria’s main political opposition group in exile agreed to attend internationally sponsored peace talks, and said for the first time three rebel fighting forces also wanted to take part.

Europe

• The trial in absentia of four Hezbollah members accused of murdering former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 has begun at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has said gays should feel welcome at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, but they must “leave the children in peace”.
• An Islamist group from Russia’s north caucasus has threatened to attack the Sochi winter Olympics in a video published online.